Listening to some of the later albums on YouTube, the improvement is even noticeable there, especially on quiet songs like "Long, Long, Long", "Julia", and "Sun King", where you might turn up the volume to hear it and get hit with that everpresent hiss on the old CDs, but there's no hiss on the remasters! I would therefore say that the remasters are definitely a significant improvement, and that they're not horrible.

Personally, I prefer the wide panning of Beatles music over the modern trend of putting everything close together in the middle, so I don't see the fact that they didn't "fix" that as a problem either. It allows the listener to hear a given part and mentally block out the others more easily, for instance if you're trying to learn the song or just be able to listen to it more thoroughly, among other benefits.

I agree with you 100% on this! As a matter of fact, I wish the vocals were panned even wider - the better to hear the different harmony parts, especially in the early songs.

Reading the liner notes in my new box set that I received today, I realized that even the early records had stereo versions, although these were simply instruments on one side and vocals on the other, mostly for audiophiles. These stereo mixes are not false stereo, and the "echoing" was simply a strange artifact of the way it was recorded (all at once, with the vocal mics picking up the instruments and the instruments picking up the vocals and each other). They're still jarring, however. It is worth noting, though, that this only applies to the first two albums and the singles prior to "I Want To Hold Your Hand", which were recorded with two-track machines.

The only real problem I have with this set is the sloppy manufacturing. The printing has yellow and blue spots at random places, some text appears to have been printed multiple times on the same spot (there's a visible diagonal line in the Magical Mystery Tour liner book on one page, below which the text is thin and with small spots missing (still readable) and above which it's unintentionally bold and blurry-edged. My With The Beatles booklet has indentations on the very outer edges of the pages where it appears someone tried to staple between the sheets instead of in the middle. The contrast on all the pictures in all the booklets and on all the jackets is extremely high, so many pictures are very dark. The biggest problem with this that I noticed was that the cover of With The Beatles appears to be two light half faces on a sea of black. On my older WTB CD cover, their black turtleneck sweaters and the other halves of their faces are clearly visible. Strangely, pages 18 of the A Hard Day's Night came before page 17, causing confusion when I started reading in the middle of a paragraph. Lastly, the black box itself is damaged and WTB's CD has scrape marks on the outer edge, which I would guess will cause the documentary not to play right. I'm lucky it was where it was, since it's not on the music portion and the documentary is on the DVD disc, which is in good condition. I know this is a new box set because all the albums had the Apple stickers on the shrink wrap, so it must have been manufacturing problems.

Then of course there's the MMT disc, which claims to have the Let It Be documentary, as has been documented elsewhere on this forum.

Nevertheless, I'm still pleased with the audio, which is of course the important part and well worth the money if you can get it for around $100, which I did easily on Ebay.

EDIT: Turns out it's not just those two pages. The entire AHDN booklet is out of order, and in no predictable way. It's not even just that they stapled it together wrong. I don't understand.

The cd's are a cool idea since digital recordings retain their quality pratically "forever" I still prefer them in vinyl. After getting my record player and spinning some albums there's no comparison. So much more worth it on vinyl boys.

One more note regarding what sewi said. Most people who listen to the Beatles (or any other musicians) are not die-hard fanatics like us. Most people just want something to listen to while jogging or driving or whatever, and so they buy the CDs, get the uncompressed WAVs or FLACs that they can't find online, and then sell the used-once CDs again. It's still legal to buy and own these CDs, however. As long as you own the physical medium, you have the license to listen to it. So when you buy the used-once CD, the license is transferred from them to you, and thus it's not you, but THEM who are illegally pirating the music. So while it may irk the die-hard fan, it's still something you can take advantage of, because the artist still gets his money, but the resold CDs are usually much cheaper than list price.

Interesting point of view.However,it still surprizes me someone buying that expensive box and trying to sell it later.Who is going to buy a second-hand box?Specially an expensive one.If you are a die-hard fan you are going to buy a new one so who is going to buy him it? :-?

I reckon those that DO buy the boxes just to rip them, and then sell them off individualy are doing it purely for the hope of making a profit on individual sales; especially with the Mono boxset.That however, wouldn't work for me! Part of the joy of owning these sets is in the packaging itself; from the atractive and carefully designed Stereo digipaks to the marvelous Mono mini-LP replica sleeves, down to the lovely label reproductions on the CD itself, which even uses the same font style based on the original LP labels.Ripping it to ones iPod is one thing, but to not own the physical media also is like only having less than half of it! Steve

The stereo CD's come in a glossy tri-fold pack, except the WA which has a four-way folding sleeve, with an embossed outer slip-cover.The artwork is heavily based around the original album's, but with additional photos.Maybe 'digipak' isn't the correct term(?), but they are frequently called this...much nicer than the traditional jewel-case anyway!Steve.

nimrod

The stereo remasters may be slightly louder (thats ok with me) but THE big improvement is........ clarity

IMO this is most apparent on good quality headphones, or high end speakers.........the separation has been significantly improved and now individual guitars can be really heard, also the sound quality of the guitars is improved (listen to the Fender Strat on Nowhere Man for example) and they now sound much crisper and punchier.

I love these RM's so much I dont think I'll ever listen to those hissy muddy dead sounding 80's versions ever again.

I cant see why anyone would complain about these RM's, maybe some people need an ear sringe :-) (no offence meant)

I certainly do agree that the RMs sound better than the old 1980s CD releases (they couldn't be any worse!), but wouldn't you have preferred a remixed catalogue for your £150/$200 rather than simply a remastered one? I definitely would!Why did they wait 20 years since the original CDs came out to do a simple remaster job? Those old CDs sounded so bad that a remastering should have been done long ago. Give them a few years and Apple will come out with the remixed albums - and they'll expect everyone to shell out for the same material .... again.It's all about money with the Beatles catalogue rather than giving fans some sort of value. Yes, EMI are a business and they want to make money, but there's nothing stopping them giving the fans more value for that money .Many other bands bend over backwards to get good product out to their fans. The Who, for example, have done some great "deluxe" re-releases of their albums, with lots of unreleased studio and live material put out on double-CD packages. This is after the whole catalogue was remastered some years ago (again with extra tracks) to replace the original series of CD albums. The deluxe CDs are released at not much more than the price of a normal non-chart CD. Plus, the old Who CDs are still available, but at a reduced price, giving the CD buyer a choice.Imagine if the Beatles had done the same - replaced the original albums after ten years on the shelves with remastered versions with a few extras thrown in.Then, ten years later, finally remixed every album and released it as a "deluxe" 2-CD package.I would have happily shelled out for all of those releases.There are some of the Who CDs that I have in three different versions (original, remaster and Deluxe) but I never minded handing over the cash for them because I have always felt like I was getting value for money.As it is, as a Beatles fan I am meant to be content with overpriced and underwhelming rehashed product.

I don't want remixes. I like the broad panning. If I'm going to listen to something in stereo, I want it to be in STEREO. I don't want it all mixed closer to center just because that's the current trend. It's a stupid trend, in my opinion.

I certainly do agree that the RMs sound better than the old 1980s CD releases (they couldn't be any worse!), but wouldn't you have preferred a remixed catalogue for your £150/$200 rather than simply a remastered one? I definitely would!Why did they wait 20 years since the original CDs came out to do a simple remaster job? Those old CDs sounded so bad that a remastering should have been done long ago. Give them a few years and Apple will come out with the remixed albums - and they'll expect everyone to shell out for the same material .... again.It's all about money with the Beatles catalogue rather than giving fans some sort of value. Yes, EMI are a business and they want to make money, but there's nothing stopping them giving the fans more value for that money .Many other bands bend over backwards to get good product out to their fans. The Who, for example, have done some great "deluxe" re-releases of their albums, with lots of unreleased studio and live material put out on double-CD packages. This is after the whole catalogue was remastered some years ago (again with extra tracks) to replace the original series of CD albums. The deluxe CDs are released at not much more than the price of a normal non-chart CD. Plus, the old Who CDs are still available, but at a reduced price, giving the CD buyer a choice.Imagine if the Beatles had done the same - replaced the original albums after ten years on the shelves with remastered versions with a few extras thrown in.Then, ten years later, finally remixed every album and released it as a "deluxe" 2-CD package.I would have happily shelled out for all of those releases.There are some of the Who CDs that I have in three different versions (original, remaster and Deluxe) but I never minded handing over the cash for them because I have always felt like I was getting value for money.As it is, as a Beatles fan I am meant to be content with overpriced and underwhelming rehashed product.

Agreed. And that's why I only purchased the mono box set. Although imperfect from an audio standpoint, anyone that has listened to the Rock Band stuff posted on the Internet can see what could have been done with the source material. Yes, some of the albums are worse than others but anyone that doesn't think that Apple isn't planning to cash in yet again with remixed stereo is kidding themselves. Of course they will. And when they do, they can always (correctly) say that they gave the fans remastered albums that maintain the albums as originally produced. If they don't want remastered stereo, nobody is forcing anyone to buy them.

Quote from: Almighty Doer of Stuff

I don't want remixes. I like the broad panning. If I'm going to listen to something in stereo, I want it to be in STEREO. I don't want it all mixed closer to center just because that's the current trend. It's a stupid trend, in my opinion.

Panning involves movement. The main problem is music as far left and right as possible as if coming from the fire exits in a concert hall. Having music more centered ... if that's a current trend, that trend as been around since a term called center stage. Don't get me wrong, having some sounds coming from the far walls may be fine, but that's not how we should hear vocals.

I totally disagree with the original quoted articel;. The remasters had more done to them than just volume. And for a tech geek the guy is blowing smoke.

The stereos were boosted (compressed) by about 4db, bringing the quieter passages louder up to 4db. So yes, you ARE hearing things you never heard before, it's not just louder, its that the dynamics are less far apart than before (by 4db). This is not simply turning up the volume.

Secondly they EQ'ed and remastered differently, which makes a huge difference in the sound. Paul's bass is far more apparent, the drums pack a beter punch, etc. They were mastered FOR CD's, not just transferred flat from vinyl masterings.

These are the stereos we are talking about. The monos were pretty much straight transfers, from the actual master tapes, with little to no processing otherwise. But being from the original master tape makes it a few generations cleaner than anything released prior to this (I am not sure the 87 discs were from master copies or not).

So in other words...yes, the stereo remasters DO sound better, in some cases incredibly so. The paning may sound severe but it is exactly what was on the master tapes, and the remastering quality may make it a bit more noticeable on some cuts (note the original article doesn't mention anything specific except Come Together). This is all just misinformed generalization, ego and someone's misplaced idea that he understands audio.

I own both mono and stereo box sets, and am very happy to have the closest thing to what the Beatles heard in the studio than ever available before.

Your mileage may vary, and that's fine. But facts is facts and this guy was just spouting opinion.

Hey, this is my first post here! Don't mean to step on any toes, I just know about the remasters more than the casual fan and it irks me to see myths promulgated by people who have no clue (again, the Amazon review, not anyone here).

So since the remsters are now the official catalog, buy one and see for yourself. Don't take someone else's word for it, your ears are the final judge.